This disclosure relates to printing systems, methods and drivers and, more specifically, to the imposition of documents to control text size and, possibly, minimize waste of print media.
Written communication is conducted through, to a great extent, the use of printed or displayed text. Fonts define the shape and appearance of the characters, numerals, and punctuation that are used to represent languages having writing systems that are alphabetic or syllabic. Ever since the advent of writing, many different fonts have been developed, such as, for example, Ariel, Courier, Helvetica, Times New Roman, etc. In modern typography, such fonts are classified into a taxonomy that includes different font families such as Serif, Sans-Serif, Courier, Monospace, etc.
Fonts are defined by multiple characteristics, including size. A common system for specifying the size of fonts is the point system. In the point system, the size of a font is indicated by the length, in points, of the body size. As shown in FIG. 1, the body size of a font includes not only the “x-height”, but also covers the height encompassed by the ascent, the full height of letters taller than an “x”, and the descent, the additional height of letters that extend below the baseline. While many versions of the point system have been historically, and are currently, used, the common point system in use in the United States defines 72 points to equal 1 inch. Because different fonts have different appearances, text displayed in different fonts can have different readabilities to users even when the different fonts have the same font size.
In modern desktop printing systems, a document can be created or received In electronic form on a device such as a personal computer, a personal digital assistant, or other suitable device. Software can be utilized that can format the document, adjust the layout of the document, change fonts, change font sizes, etc. Thereafter, the document can be printed on a printer to produce a hardcopy of the document. The hardcopy of the document can further be bound or otherwise subjected to processing to result in a finished product. The fonts, printing resolution of the printing device, and the available recording medium used can, and do, vary between desktop publishing systems and depend on the software and hardware making up the system.